I dream a lot. Either fantastic and ridiculous dreams including friends and family – lastly of my friends and I having moved to an exotic island, where we slaughtered and ate people (well, they did, I insisted that I’m a vegetarian). These dreams aren’t inspirational, they’re just fun to tell my friends about and laugh when they roll their eyes at how my dream-self imagines them. The other kind of dreams though are harder to remember but often find their way into my paintings one way or the other (they’re beautiful: either frightening or freeing, often nightmares or nightmarish but sometimes with happy endings). I only dream when I sleep for more than a couple of hours, though – which means very frequently during some periods, and not at all for other weeks.

My freakiest dreams, though, are what I refer to as ‘waking dreams’. I’m curious if anyone else with an over-active imagination has them. These dreams are dreams that will linger after you wake up. You’ll see your room perfectly clear but there will be something else in the room with you, something lingering from the dream realm. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve seen huge, hand-sized (or larger) spiders scuttling up the walls. So realistic that I’ve often forced myself to lift the paintings they ‘hid’ under off the wall, or check under the bed. I can see someone standing next to my bed, staring at me, or perhaps the closet’s door creaking open and something stepping out. These dreams are insanely realistic and there’s no ‘shift’ between the dream and waking up fully. I’ve since found out that I’m not alone in having this problem (aside from it actually running in the family): in fact, there’s even a name for it even if I can’t quite recall it at the moment.

i used to get dreams all the time when i was younger..when i was a kid i had a wierd dream that i would see many times and everytime i wake up i find myself in another room or on the floor..it was freaky i don't get it anymore though which is good..lol

lately i'm not getting much dreams anymore though because i don't sleep much and i sleep very very late..like 6-7am is my normal bed time...not kidding and when i sleep i'm so tired that my brain totaly shuts down or something..lol..then when i wake up i'm so tired i barely remember anything

but when i used to sleep normal i usually could remember my dreams when i wake up withought a problem..and i remembered details too

but what i've been doing latley is getting dreams whenever i feel like it..what i do is that i just lay down on bed and play certain ambient music with a certain vloume (steve roach or robert rich)
i then start to feel half asleep half awake..i'm sleeping and resting but my brain is kinda awake..i see things but kinda aware of what i see..sometimes i feel my whole body is in another place and my eyes open then close again..i can't really describe that feeling..but it's something amazing that is almost a hobby now..lol

Enayla:I think i've only once ever had anything like that. When I was really young I 'woke up' and there was a skellington outside my window so I ran into my parents room and they were skellingtons too! It felt real, but to be honest I'm not really sure if I actually did wake up or not.

I think it is quite common though. And I wonder if this sort of thing can sometimes convince people that they have seen a ghost or something supernatural. I know that a lot of ghost 'sightings' and alien abductions happen when people wake up in the night.

JMcWilliams - I think 'waking dreams', or whatever one might want to call them, are the reason to a lot of ghost sightings, yes (not to belittle anyone's beliefs, I did not say 'all', I said a 'lot'). I once woke up in my parents' house to find a woman standing by my bed. She sort of... swept backwards and out the door when I looked at her - it was such a freaky thing... I thought my heart would hammer its way out of my chest. Having had similar dreams for many years doesn't mean I don't get freaked out, heh.

It's a little like having hallucinations due to heightened temperature. Feverish, yet not. It's weird.

Enayla: I once had a nightmare that didn't end when I woke up. No visuals, just this sound without sound if you will, and odd sensations. The nightmare was pretty silly, I had to push big square blocks around and fight a pillowfight with a giant (I turned into a giant myself then) to save the world, and each pillowblow made an ear-shattering noise. I woke up, and it felt like a thousand people screaming in my head, silently (did I fail?), and I felt this tingling in my fingertips. If I put my index finger to my thumb, it felt like there was something small and hard rolling between them. Later I noticed that it was exactly like how rolling a small piece of dried-up clay between my fingers feels. The sensation still creeps me out.

From time to time I get other things too, most often when I'm tired. Sometimes I "sense" objects, not in physical space but in my head rather, primitives, cylinders and cubes etc. that are at the same time impossibly large and minute, and they fill me with this sense of dread that I can't push away even though I don't know what I'm afraid of. The only thing to do then is wait.

Hey Rebuilder: I have been waiting for someone to share that kind of dream.

Originally Posted by rebuilder:
From time to time I get other things too, most often when I'm tired. Sometimes I "sense" objects, not in physical space but in my head rather, primitives, cylinders and cubes etc. that are at the same time impossibly large and minute, and they fill me with this sense of dread that I can't push away even though I don't know what I'm afraid of. The only thing to do then is wait.

That sounds like a night terror to me. I used too have them all the time when I was younger. They were very scary but the content of the dreams was just shapes and sizes, in the dream there was alot of white noise which hurt my ears and I had a sensation of touching shaved skin which filled me with dread, very bizarre. ALso the wall around me in the dream would stretch and squash which for some reason I found scary? Anyone else experience night terrors?

Originally Posted by Enayla:My freakiest dreams, though, are what I refer to as ‘waking dreams’. I’m curious if anyone else with an over-active imagination has them. These dreams are dreams that will linger after you wake up. You’ll see your room perfectly clear but there will be something else in the room with you, something lingering from the dream realm. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve seen huge, hand-sized (or larger) spiders scuttling up the walls. So realistic that I’ve often forced myself to lift the paintings they ‘hid’ under off the wall, or check under the bed. I can see someone standing next to my bed, staring at me, or perhaps the closet’s door creaking open and something stepping out. These dreams are insanely realistic and there’s no ‘shift’ between the dream and waking up fully. I’ve since found out that I’m not alone in having this problem (aside from it actually running in the family): in fact, there’s even a name for it even if I can’t quite recall it at the moment.

Does anyone else have this? Or am I alone in my freakiness

I think that it's rare and I'm banking that thescientific name for it will end up in the books just like RSI which now has several varieties and is no longer referred to as RSI. Some more obscure studies have shown that people will secrete certain subsatnces in their brain along with paranormal activity and "abnormal" activity, these substacnes can make you hallucinate. Allthough people within a family, I darenot say it, will often acknowledge eachothers stories just to make them feel better. It can't all be trusted. But needless to say I'm not saying anything about your family or the aliens that supposedly abducted you. Allthough some things do seem to be passed on genetically other things "skip" a generation, I'd say the nature of the form will always have more weight. But as an answer, I'll just put down one of my dreams besides the nightmares.

Here goes, I happen to have a vivid imagination too, but mine seems to be more contained in the way that I don't suffer from daytime hallucinations. Besides that I suffer from weird experiences and dreams that forebode what WILL happen. And they're exceptionally brilliant at times. For illustration.
I once took a good dose of Hawaiian magic mushrooms alone in my room. These things have a slightly halucinogenic effect.
After a while they started to kick in and a weird array of spiral shaped thoughts(I say thoughts because they didn't have a imaginary form yet) started playing around me. Soon after the whole thing kicked in and I found myself in a spiral consisting of pyramids and cubes that wildly changed shape and orientation. On their surface I could clearly see what looked like moving images. The experience was so startling and scary and alive that I remember it quite closely tofay. Turns out that I was looking at an assembly of important turning points in my life. And these events, when they happen, I can almost exactly know what will happen next. Because I've seen it allready. This has happened at several occasions to me and is quite lucid. Needless to say this has raised some very interesting questions for me. Who 's in charge here? Do I make these choices myself. But I've been under the impression that they are almost like reassurances of things I really want to do. They are there for me, and not just randomly.

But as I said mine are far more controlled and of a "supernatural"(meaning they could ne induced by meditation or drugs) kind.

But I would like to add that I was under the firm impression that, after my grandfather had died he came to visit me and say good bye and give me a good hug. But I was very young and didn't quite understand the severity of death. So it was quite fun and warm and normal to me. Hop this doesn't make me a social outcast now.

edit: I'll probably edit this post, I found that reading back has brought some indiscrpeancies to my underlying patterns of madness. Don't worry about it, you're not mad I am.

Quote:My freakiest dreams, though, are what I refer to as ‘waking dreams’.

Isnt this called lucid dreaming? I know schitzophrenia is supposed to be like a waking dream,where reality and dream are indistinuishable. Sleep deprivation can result in psychosis where your brain starts dreaming when you are awake, but you are unable to distinguish the dream elements from reality.

In fact lack of sleep triggers anxiety and depression which can turn a waking dream into a nightmare. The more nightmarish it gets the more convincing it becomes. I've had this after too much working on the computer . In fact I'm sure computers act as a potent stimulant that allow you to sleep deprive to an enormous degree. Real instruments of torture actually

Infinite: I looked up night terrors just recently but it didn't really match up. I get a couple of the symptoms, but no sweating or raised pulse or anything. It's not unbearable, just uncomfortable. If I concentrate I can keep it in check better, but if I don't and go with it it still doesn't become truly horrible. But then in my nightmares I rarely feel fear anyway. In my dreams, the more dangerous events get, the more detached I become. Also the state I described before besieges me before I go to sleep, not really after I've woken up. Sounds sometimes trigger it, certain kinds of repetitive rhythms most often. Everything I hear seems to slow down and I get a tunnelvision-like effect. I can still function normally, more or less, but I have to focus on keeping the discomfort at bay.

In my case the most likely cause would probably be epilepsy. I was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy at age 7, but I haven't had to take medication for maybe 10 years. It was never very serious, I only had a few attacks. But I suppose these might be mild attacks, they occur when I'm tired and that's when the risk of an attack is highest apparently.

And another thing about what Enayla describes, it does sound rather like sleep paralysis, except without the paralysis part. Not the first time I've heard of it, so I guess you're not alone Enayla.

I've had several dreams where after I woke up everything still seemed (felt like) it was the dream... even though nothing looked like it. In fact I've had several of those types where the whole day long it felt like the dream. I really don't like those dreams, because I can't figure out whats going on and why its like that.

When I was a kid I used to day-dream a lot... and even at school... hah hah. I remember it quite well. I was never that good at sports, so I was always left sitting on the bike-racks when all the other kids were playing. I recall many times that either the teacher or other kids were calling and yelling at me to get my attention... and I had been daydreaming and completely unaware of what was going on (most of the time I would be dreaming/imagining Godzilla smashing cities ). One time the teacher was calling me and started walking towards me getting louder and louder, till she was right in front of me... and I snapped out of it. That was the last time it happened (2nd grade I think)... because all the kids laughed at me, so I made sure it didn't happen again.

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